Oh Baby!

Me and Austin circa 1995. I was sooo nervous.

I am going to have a baby.
Okay, I thought I would be used to saying that by now, but um, nope. I'm not.
Yesterday I heard the baby's heart beat. And of course I started crying. It was just so amazing. One of my midwives, Wendy, had told me that it might be to early to hear but that we should just try anyway. As soon as the fast rushing sound of baby heart came out of the little monitor speaker, the two midwives started cheering! They were so excited. I was too, but also um....shocked.

I was shocked that that sound was coming from my body. I was shocked that the baby was really in there. I don't know why, but I expected someone, someday soon would be like....um, Lacy, your not pregnant, your just getting FAT. And then I would nod and say "of course." and life would go back to life.

But nope. The sound of cheers in the little examining room confirmed it. I have had an ultrasound and I have seen the little"bean" shape baby and yet it was the sound that really drove it home. I am pregnant.

Wow. How your world changes when you are growing life.


Me and Mitchell, circa 1997. I look high. I was not.
Everyone wants to talk about the baby ALL the time. Question after question. People touch your belly even if you are not showing, without asking. And suddenly there is this realization that there is something more important than YOU in YOUR body. Okay. I know this sounds really confusing but its true!



Me and Ali, circa 1998. Look how confident I was by this point! That's right, I only need one arm!
I'm not really feeling scared about having a baby. I know Patrick and I will adapt and that we are on the same page with all this. I've had my fair share of baby life. I am more afraid of not getting the birth I so crave. I do NOT want a c-section and yet I know that it could be a possibility. Of course I would do it but only if I absolutely had to. That is my biggest fear. A c-section. I have just done so much research about that particular subject and know more that most.

If I had to do it, I wonder if the docs could just knock me out completely upon request? Let's just pray I don't ever have to ask.

Yeah Baby!!!!

LDM

The End Is Near!

I officially have all of my work in. I still need to clean out my studio, which is soooo sad. I won't have a fully working studio of my own anymore! but that is about it. The show is up at Disjecta and at the Hoffman. The big opening is tomorrow night and graduation is on Saturday! Wow.


I still have to get a keg for Disjecta, dress up and party but otherwise, college is over. Time to face the real world. What a scary place to be in. It's kinda hard to believe I made it through all the hoops they made me jump through this year. Paper - done. Orals - done. Speech - done. Body of work - done. Gallery install - done. Hundreds of pieces of paper signed by hundreds of people - done. Meeting after agonizing meeting - done. I'm DONE!
It feels good but I also have so much time I don't know what to do with myself. My summer job doesn't start til the end of June and only goes through August. I need a project. I need to make something. I just got done making something huge, but still, I need to make more. I guess that's the life of an artist. Make, make, make.

Please join me in the celebration of my thesis work. It only took one year to finish! Friday night, 6-9pm at Disjecta - 8371 N Interstate Portland OR 97217 Free food and booze! www.disjecta.org
The show titled "29."

LDM

Gra-ja-ma-cay-ting!

Me in my darkroom.

Yesterday was really the first day I didn't feel like I was running around with my head chopped off trying to finish this thesis. It was the first day I felt like I had nothing to do and I was so LOST.
I really do have things I can be doing. Lots of things. Like finishing my thesis paper, working on my oral presentation and doing some fine touches to prints and such.
But for some reason because my cabinets were finally hanging on the wall in place of their paper models I felt accomplished.

My messy studio with paper cabinet models.

It's like this weird limbo, where I have more time than I probably need and so I'm not super rushed. I still have work but I still have time too. Or maybe that's just how it feels right now. I feel like I should be looking for a job, but I still have so many school meetings and such that my availability sucks.
My cabinets rusting in the back yard only a few months ago.

It's a weird limbo I will never be in again. I will no longer use the excuse "student." Better use it up while I can.
Graduating from college is a strange strange time.

LDM

Dearest Dad,

I am sorry you lost your job. We knew this might be coming but I hoped it would not really come.
I know you will survive and there are other jobs out there. I know you will always take care of us.
But what a disapointment!
I wish I could help more, you have always taken care of me, I want to take care of you.
As you know, I have no money, but I will help in any way I can.
And I know you are only joking, but if we do all have to move into one house, it will be okay. You are not that annoying to live with.
It is a scary time, but I know we can make it. I am sure once it is known that you are a free man, job offers will be coming left and right, I mean, come on, look at that face!: Dad - Age 9 and soooo handsome!

Dad and Me - 1983

Dad- the basketball champ!!!! - Forest Grove High 1973

Dad with Grandpa and Grandma (nice hair!)

Dad and Carin
Dad - working at Grandma's house ( i love your hat.)

Keep on truckin'!

Love Always,
Your Daughter

Da Vinci

Patrick and I went to see the Da Vinci exhibit at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) AKA the coolest place ever, especially if you are a kid, for his birthday, (hooray for you! birthday!). That's Patrick (above) posing as Mona Lisa.

The exhibit was AMAZING. The first floor was mostly about his journals and inventions. Some where in Italy a group recreated his inventions using his journals. It was crazy to see how many things he came up with, scuba gear, the bike, tanks, helicopters, cars that move on their own, clocks etc. Most of the stuff you couldn't touch but there was quite a few things you could, and then you could see the things he invented in action.

There was a few videos throughout. One about a horse sculpture he made that was destroyed, one on his theory of the golden ratio and the Vitruvian Man (boggeled my mind man), one on Mona Lisa etc.

The second floor was mainly his art and a ton on Mona Lisa. You find out all these things about her and the painting that no one ever teaches you in art history that are really fascinating. Like that she hung in a bathroom for a long time, someone threw a rock at her, and that yes, she did have eyebrows and eye lashes, among a million other details.

So this guy created a camera that could photograph all the different layers of the painting and see in all these hard to see colors (it's really more intense than this but I don't really understand it). After photographing the painting and finding out all this stuff, he can tell us all these cool facts PLUS show us what the Mona Lisa actually looked like when Da Vinci was looking at her.

When you see the mock ups of what she actually looked like, it's stunning. She looked nothing like today. She was rosy and flush and the background was a really beautiful, inviting place. Not the scary dark place behind her now. Actually she looked like she might have come from the Rococo fad. Leo would probably kill me for saying that. But really, the colors reminded me of The Swing, by Fragonard.

I have taken a ton of art history classes and all of my professors failed to mention these details. I have even stood in front of the Mona Lisa myself, and I feel like if I would have known what the OMSI exhibit told me before I went to Paris I would have been so much more interested in her when I stood there, and probably not thinking about all the sweaty people crushed around me.
I am not going to give away all of her secrets. You must go and find those yourself. I will leave you with two amazing quotes I learned from Da Vinci though:
"Art is never finished only abandoned." and "There are those who see, those who see when shown and those who do not see."


Leo, you rock my world.

LDM

The Nest

Dear Newlywed's,

Buy this:The Nest: Newlywed Handbook by Carley Roney

It's been so helpful. That's all I'm gonna say.


Love always,
LDM

Jodi Picoult

I know, she's like EVERYWHERE now. And I totally have the "I knew of her way back when" syndrome. Like when you've been listening to a band forever, thinking they were totally the coolest shit around, and then suddenly said band are all over the radio and you see people wearing said band's t-shirts and riding around with said band's bumper stickers on their car. It sucks. I'm sorry, I wanna share but not with the WHOLE WORLD! And then I get afraid that that horrible thing will happen where said band becomes really cliche and starts writing really crappy "pop" music even if said band did NOT PLAY POP!

This is how I feel about Jodi Picoult. Except she hasn't started to suck....thank the Lord!

Like when Bob Dylan changed his sound and added a band behind him, but all his First Fans thought it sucked and he was a sell out and the Brits boo-ed him. Jodi is kinda like Bob. I still like both their first work and their current work. That is a good thing, cause you know, I'm a First Fan.

I have been reading Jodi since 1998. I walked into a bookstore when I was in the 8th grade, looking for a new book to read. I was totally stumped and lost, I had just finished reading everything John Saul had out at the time and was looking for something fresh. (I have this habit of being totally committed to one author at a time and devouring everything they have published, even if it's only a hundred word tidbit in some obscure magazine when they were fifteen. I'm working on branching out, it's been hard.) So I asked an employee what she would recommend and she handed me The Pact. I bought it on faith, took it home and had it read (I'm serious) that night. The next day I went back to the bookstore and bought as many of her books as I could afford with my allowance.

She soon became my favorite author. I went to her book signing in a little bookstore in Multnomah Village called Annie Blooms Books. I begged my father to go with me. As an aspiring writer himself, it was not hard. I was the youngest in the room. The only girl I would say, all the other people there were definitely women. I was so nervous, but loved every moment of the reading. And at the end, I got in line and she signed my books. I have gone back every year she has come to Portland. She even remembered my name at one signing. I was totally star struck. I asked her a question one time about the ending to her book Salem Falls, it's hard to explain her answer but the way she talked to me was like a real friend. It was wonderful. I even started emailing her if I had questions about certain parts of her stories. She always responded and was always kind.

My favorite book of hers is definitely Harvesting the Heart. I have read it so many times I have lost count. The cover is all faded and worn, about to fall off. It sits by my bed on my nightstand, always. I can't really describe that book, it just always made me feel so normal about having doubts in my life, and that somehow I would find a way, even if I had to run away to find it. It is one of her firsts. On the copy I have her hair is very short and she looks totally different from the picture with her family above.

Tomorrow her new book comes out, Handle With Care. I will buy it tomorrow, even if I have to use all my pennies. Every year I do, it's like an introduction to spring. I am proud of Jodi for being so successful. And like Bob I'm sure the fame won't go to her head, or at least she will keep writing good books.

I hope this book is just as good, if not better, than the last.
Congrats Jodi!

LDM